Broadcaster Sky is still struggling to reduce its total greenhouse gas emissions but managed to cut its carbon intensity, as emissions per £1m of turnover, by 2% last year.
The broadcaster’s 2010 sustainability report, published in September, suggests it has taken on board government guidance on reporting carbon emissions.1
Last year Sky made a big deal of its net emissions figures, reporting electricity bought through green tariffs as zero-carbon. This runs counter to the guidelines, which suggest the main measure be a ‘gross’ emissions figures that assumes all purchased electricity to have grid-average emissions (ENDS Report 418, pp 12-13). This year, Sky reports the two figures alongside each other.
It has also calculated its carbon intensity, which it hopes to cut by 25% by 2020, using its gross emissions.
Sky has a reputation as a green pioneer, first going carbon neutral in 2006 but has struggled to reduce its total emissions as its business grows (ENDS Report 377, p 4). More than 10,000 tonnes of the extra 13,400t of CO2e the firm emitted last year resulted from extra electricity use. Its vehicle fuel use also rose while emissions of refrigerants fell.
Elsewhere the report shows an 8% gain in the energy efficiency of Sky-owned buildings between 2008/9 and 2009/10 and 29% cut in the energy use of the firm’s Sky+HD set-top boxes.
Sky has managed a 5% reduction in the CO2 emissions of its vans since 2008/2009 and 3% reduction in the average business travel emissions per employee. The figures are still some way from targets for 2012, which involve a 25% cut in van emissions and 20% cut in business travel emissions.